Katya Oicherman

Renderings of Writings (2004)

Descriptions of Wanderings (2005)

Part I: Rendering of writings by Yuhannah Mirza Ben-David Dawud, researcher and poet, illuminated by the divine light of passion of comprehension through preparation of black and golden signs of the concealed wisdom of ancient manuscripts, impenetrable for those uninitiated into the art of memory and interpretation; who died in London’s borough of Highgate in 1969, of illness and old age and also unable to part from his collection of last year newspapers,which served him as bed linen and blanket, which he has accumulated during his travels to the East, when he still was a young man, but became such a miser and niggard that no one wanted to talk to him, and he was only able to talk about his weary books and he died alone. ∗

My work is founded in the story of Yuhanna Dawud, a British (of Jewish-Persian origins) collector of Islamic art. Beginning as a passionate researcher of Persian manuscripts, he ended up obsessively cutting and reassembling the original books. He died in London in 1969, in the age of 85. By that time he was very ill, lived alone in an indigent apartment. One room for himself, three others for his collection and archive. He did not part from even one item to improve his conditions.

What was he thinking of, looking at, sensing? I do not know. Neither can I read the inscriptions on the dispelled fragments of the manuscripts, as I do not know the language. I can reconstruct his tale using the details which his archive supplies: the cracking walls of the untidy room, the mouldy bread on the chair, the golden medallions on the pages, the curly black letters, the shiny sharp blade.

In my collages, discarded vinyl flooring serves as a ground; its tactility reminds of earth and of skin. Mounted on it there are cut-outs of my earlier work; photographs - from the archive of Dawud and my own; pieces of materials I have collected for their textures; fragments I have painted over with gold and colours. The accidental and the intentional, texture and image coexist on their surface.

Dispersed fragments unified by the passionate destructive gesture that created them; inscriptions and details, often impenetrable and coded, but always eloquent, persuasive and contained in their materiality. As a scintillating reminiscence which brings up to the surface one brightest detail, but no context which allows to assign it a meaning. As an accidental pile of turbid recollections, unspeakable, but sensible, entangled in the weary net of the consciousness.

The abstract notion “text” acquires flesh and is redistributed physically by Dawud. Reality is transformed from its physical state into fleshless image, code, text in the memory. An authoritative hand rewrites the text of the real and, in case the recalling person has a propensity to paper scribbling, applies this text on paper, which in its turn is ready for cutting, in order, again, to be transformed into recollection, code, text.

Materials:Discarded vinyl, roof felt, asphalt, wallpaper, flooring rubber underlay, other construction refuse,

glass patina of 13th century crusader's vessels, textile, metal thread, felt, gold leaf, black and white photo-copies, C prints, ink, acrylic, plastic, polystyrene, hardboard, steel, pins.

Sizes: wall C – 3.75 x 2.4 m, wall B – 2.8 x 2.4 m, floor collage A – approx. 3 x 3.5m, spikes – 1.6-1.8 m.

Final project for MA course in Goldsmiths College, London, 2004

Rendering of Writings, general view of the installation↑

Floor collage↓

A

C B

Rendering of Writings, floor collage, details

Rendering of Writings, floor collage – spikes, details

Rendering of Writings, wall C – mixed media on C-print, discarded hardboard, pins, dimensions variable

Part II: The descriptions of peregrinations and scatterings of Yuhannah Mirza Ben-David Dawud – researcher and poet illuminated by the divine light of passion of comprehension through preparation of black and golden signs of the concealed wisdom of ancient manuscripts, impenetrable for those uninitiated into the art of memory and interpretation; his journeys to the East in the search of the mystical tent, a wandering tabernacle which was said to contain the incredible cotton sheets marked by the imprints of the prophetic sweating body and the sublime saliva; which he found and returned to London where in 1969 he drew this map on the backside of a souvenir picture and where soon after, the rapture of his awakening brought death upon him.

Yuhannah Mirza Ben-David Dawud (1885-1969) was an Iranian born British collector and researcher of Persian manuscripts. During the later years of his life he obsessively cut and reassembled them. For more than two years my work is informed by the activities and the life story of this person. “Part II: Descriptions of Wanderings” is a continuation of “Part I: Rendering of Writings”, an installation in Goldsmiths College, London in 2004.

The drawing on the map – stains and suffusions of dirt, grease, spilled liquids – the traces of human corporeal existence, the map of a lived life. Walls, floors, roofs and on them - layers of wallpaper, carpets, vinyl, curtains, bedspreads, upholstery, roof felt – the shrouds of the house, which is the exterior inclusive body of the tenant, even though the tenants are changing, moving in and out (this state is of a special interest for me, as I am familiar with the long-lasting reality of a rented accommodation). The concealed, un-noticeable, intimate trace, the imprint left by the tenant on the house and by the house on the tenant. This imprint appears on the surface of the house – the second skin. Surface is understood here in a wide sense as a space of intimate contact, not necessarily of a pleasant nature.

Tent – an image which simultaneously introduces the fragility, frailness and temporality of a dwelling place, a home, and its imperishable idea. A wandering tabernacle. Its soft walls, a worn net of the consciousness in which pieces, shreds of recollections are entangled.

Tent is a permanently temporal dwelling. I would like to refer in my tent, in its form and construction, to the medieval Turkish military tents – constructions where the soft textile replaces stone. The Turkish tent in itself suggests another, mobile way of living, in which what is rendered habitable is not a concrete fixed spot of space (a house), but a whole portion of geographical plane, surface, which demands a map for its designation and navigation of the peregrination of a mobile home. The hi/story of this wandering is told by the remnants of the mobile dwelling place, the debris left behind. Subtle decorative medallions appear as traces of mould, black curly letters as grain of decaying asphalt, colourful illustrations as assembly of worn shreds of floor vinyl, royal golden seals as stains of spilled tea.

The collection of debris of construction in itself can appear as a sort of portrait, a testimony, collective sediment of memory of the local people. The action of re-assembling becomes narration and interpretation of this memory.

The installation was constructed in South Square Centre, Bradford, in 2005

Descriptions of Wanderings, Tent ↑Approximately 5 x 4 x 4 mDiscarded upholsteries and isolation materials, roof felt, manipulated textiles, C prints, beads, gold leaf, strings, ropes, nails.The tent is installed employing the inner architectural structure of the space – massive wooden beams

Tent, details← ↓

Descriptions of Wanderings, Cut-out: close up and general view15 x 11 x 2 cmBlack and white photocopies, pins

Descriptions of Wanderings, Map ↑ Details↓Installation; approximately 2.5 x 2.8 x 0.5 m.Discarded wallpaper and vinyl, roof felt, decayed hardboard, discarded upholstery and carpet, other construction refuse, discarded wire, wool, parts of found toy railway, 13th century patina from crusaders' vessels, C prints, black and white photocopies, ink, acrylic, gold leaf, polystyrene, pins.